Welcome in to Ben’s Building Blocks for DraftKings & FanDuel! This is a free article written daily to identify my top-overall DFS plays for cash game and small-field contests on both DraftKings and FanDuel. I truly appreciate everyone that reads and supports the content. If you’d like to support further you can click HERE to sign-up for a MLB Premium package. This gets you access to my Core Plays daily — allowing you to tail my builds, access the premium Discord channels and view our DFS Projections Portal. We’ve been on fire already this MLB season, and there’s no better time to sign-up. With that being said, let’s dive into today’s slate…
Above is an example of my MLB Core Plays for the 4/27 slate
Top Pitchers
Eury Perez
The Miami Marlins raised some eyebrows when they chose to call-up 20 year old Eury Perez last week, but his first start should inspire confidence in their decision. He threw 88 pitches, allowing two runs but striking out seven and he draws a favorable match-up on Thursday against the Washington Nationals. Washington doesn’t strike out much as a team, but their projected lineup also owns just a .271 wOBA and .098 ISO. On a small slate like this, I’m simply going to build around the best pitchers and there’s no doubt in my mind that Perez is one of the most talented young pitchers in baseball. He’s also priced at just $7,700 which is what makes him such a strong play. There aren’t any pitchers I’m scared to fade on this small slate, so locking in Perez and spending up for my favorite stack is likely going to be the move on my main team.
Outside of Perez, Dylan Cease and Tyler Wells are pacing ownership projections at the SP slot. Cease has a good match-up against a low-power Guardians lineup, but he’s been inconsistent this season and walks too many batters for me to love him as chalk. I love Wells as a real-life pitcher, but he doesn’t have the strikeout ability that I typically prioritize with my DFS pitchers. That leaves Taj Bradley for me at $9,100 against the Mets. I highly doubt many pay this price for the Rays young pitcher, but he has as much K upside as anyone on the slate and I’m definitely down to get a bit different on a slate like this.
Building Blocks
Ryan Mountcastle + Orioles Stack
I love this spot for the Orioles today, with the matching up against Tyler Anderson who has really struggled this season. In years past, Anderson has never been a fantasy asset but he’s always been solid in real-life with good control. This year, his control has slipped and he’s walking 11% of batters faced while striking them out just 14% of the time. He is bad against right-handed hitters, and he will likely see seven of them in the lineup today. Baltimore as a team is very good, with power up and down the lineup against left-handed pitching. They have the highest team total — so they won’t be a secret — but on a small slate we can get weird with our mini-stacks or SP’s to differentiate our lineup.
Mountcastle is set to go on an offensive tear soon. He’s top-30 in baseball in xwOBA and top-6 in barrels/PA. There are still sizable gaps between his expected stats and actual ones, and this is a good spot for a breakout given that he mashes left-handed pitching.
Ben’s Stat of the Day
Eury Perez is the youngest active player in the MLB.
Written by Ben Hossler (Follow @BenHossler on Twitter)
